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Rev. Neil Thomas of MCC LA.
By Steven Fales | July 30, 2010
I got to talk with Rev. Neil Thomas of MCC LA today. I believe he is one of the spiritual leaders that is going to be part of moving the LGBT movement forward. I listen to him and he makes me want to be a better person, not just a better activist. Go to www.mccla.org and see his weekly sermons. Rev. Neil has helped me seek more emotional and spiritual maturity as a gay/bi-sexual man. Here’s from his weekly newsletter. I want to bring him to Salt Lake City to speak. Whether or not you are Christian, you cannot argue that this man is inspired.
The Pastor’s Pen,
Dear Steven
Last Sunday I preached a sermon entitled, “Living Positively”. In it, I challenged us all to live from the positive place and to “test God in all things”, knowing that changing our attitude can change our lives.
This week I met with a man who has been struggling with this very concept. He shared with me that he comes from a faith that was more fundamentalist. His family lived in fear of God and because of this he has grown up believing in a God who is “out to get him!”
He told me that, as an adult, as a gay man, he continues to hear the voices from his past and, even when his rational voice is telling him that God is all loving, he continues to hear the voice of his childhood telling him that God is not pleased with him.
I think that many of us can identify with him. Many of us have heard the voices that tell us we are unworthy, unloved, undeserving. We hear the rhetoric that has polluted and distorted the image of God that Jesus came to remind us of. We have bought into the image of God that has been taught us by our churches or by our parents.
In my conversation with this man I told him that the image of God portrayed by our institutions is not, necessarily the image given to us in the Bible. I told him that God is inviting us into an adult relationship with God – not a relationship through someone else, through our church, our pastor or indeed through our parents. God is inviting us as an adult, and as such it is vital that we meet God in this adult place. It is vital that we develop our own relationship with God. This is what Jesus invites us into.
Today, Anne Rice, author of “Interview with a Vampire and “Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession”, announced that she is quitting Christianity, refusing to be “anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-science and anti-Democrat”. In a later statement she said, “My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me.” She continued, “But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”
She echoes so many of my own sentiments. In becoming an adult believer and having an adult relationship with God, I no longer have to agree with everything that the church says, or a pastor says. I no longer have to believe in the God of my parents, or my childhood and I get to follow Jesus who, if you get to know Him personally, welcomes us all to love God, love self and love others.
I am grateful that here at MCCLA we are a diverse, radically inclusive community of faith and believe that Anne would feel more than welcome here. I intent to reach out to her and invite her to come visit!
Today, I invite you to come and welcome the visitor who comes to MCCLA this Sunday to explore the possibility that the God that they have known through a previous experience is a God who is inviting them to take a fresh look, a mature look, a questioning look, an adult look at the God who is found in Jesus.
And who know…. perhaps one day we might just see Anne in our midst, or someone just like her!
I look forward to welcoming you too!
See you Sunday, Steven
Sincerely, in Christ
The Reverend Dr. Neil G. Thomas
Senior Pastor
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